04/19/2025
Sidney Poitier was just 20 years old, a dishwasher in New York City with only a third-grade education, struggling to read words with more than three syllables. Fresh from the Bahamas, he lost his dishwashing job and, while skimming a newspaper, noticed an ad: “Actors Wanted.” Something about the word wanted felt like an invitation. He had no experience, but he showed up anyway.
When he walked into the audition, a large man handed him a script. Poitier struggled to read each word, his Caribbean accent thick, his confidence shaky. The man didn’t hold back—he grabbed Poitier by the collar, shoved him out, and said, “Stop wasting people’s time. You can’t read, and you can’t act. Go back to dishwashing.”
Humiliated, Poitier walked to the bus stop, replaying the words in his mind. Then something hit him. How did that man know I was a dishwasher? He realized that in that moment, he had been labeled, dismissed, and defined by what others thought he could be. That night, he made a decision: I will become an actor—not for fame, but to prove him wrong. To prove I am more than what he sees.
Poitier kept washing dishes to survive, but he also worked on himself. He auditioned for the American Negro Theater in Harlem, but he didn’t know actors studied scripts—so he memorized a random article from True Confessions magazine instead. The theater rejected him, but he refused to walk away. He offered to be their janitor for free—just to stay in the room. Months later, though still struggling, he was dismissed again.
Unknown to him, three fellow students saw something in him. They pleaded with the head instructor, who reluctantly made Poitier the understudy for the lead role. It was a role he was never meant to play—but fate had other plans. The lead actor, Harry Belafonte, missed the performance. That night, Sidney Poitier stepped onto the stage. In the audience sat a producer, who offered him his first small role.
Poitier’s rise was not overnight. He took whatever roles he could, but he refused to play characters who lacked dignity. In 1954, he was offered a movie role with a $750 paycheck (equivalent to $7,000 today)—desperately needed since he owed the hospital $75 for his daughter’s birth. But when he read the script, he refused. His character, a janitor, witnessed a crime but stayed silent. He told his agent, “I can’t play this. A father would never just accept this. I won’t do it.” Instead of taking the money, Poitier pawned his furniture to pay the hospital bill and went back to washing dishes.
Months later, that same agent, Martin Baum, invited him into his office and said, “I don’t understand why you turned that job down—but anyone who believes in something that much, I want to represent.” Baum became his agent, and the rest is history.
Poitier made history again in 1968 while filming In the Heat of the Night. The script required his character, a Black detective, to be slapped by a white man—and simply stand there in silence. Poitier refused. “That is not what a man would do. If you want me, I slap him back.” He got the studio to agree, and the moment became one of the most powerful scenes in film history.
From a dismissed dishwasher to the first Black man to win an Academy Award for Best Actor, Sidney Poitier didn’t just change Hollywood—he changed how people saw themselves. "Who I am is my father’s son. I saw how he treated my mother and family. I know how to be a decent human being.”
A legacy built on integrity, resilience, and the courage to never accept limits.
~Weird but true
Welcome to Ellie-May !!
